


5 times Magic was Glitchy as Hell + 1 time it worked perfectly

by Linorien



Series: 007 Fest 2019 [23]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20005783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien
Summary: What it says on the tin.





	5 times Magic was Glitchy as Hell + 1 time it worked perfectly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Somedrunkpirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedrunkpirate/gifts).



> Prompted by somedrunkpirate: The 'arcane magic is as glitchy as technology and wizards have as much trust in their spells as programmers in their code" idea, with q being a very tired wizard

Q’s worst class was language. He could ace the vocabulary and translate like a native speaker, but his accent was always wrong. Maybe for the non-magic schools that would be fine, but the wizards needed to be exact in their pronunciation and their vocabulary. Spells needed to be said with the exact inflection of the creator otherwise you introduced new variables into the spell and new variables meant unexpected side effects. It was why people didn’t just translate spells into new languages. They had to be created all over again. 

So he stayed after school with his language teacher to practice pronouncing difficult words. In the special magic dampening room so that it lessened the chances of your magic responding to a spell even when you didn’t mean to cast it. 

Or that was the idea. Q was busy apologizing profusely when the room filled with jelly filled donuts and custard creams. The spell wasn’t even meant to do that. It should’ve been snowing if anything!

(The teachers should’ve realised at this point that Q had enough magic potential to be a warlock. The room really should’ve stopped any magic. Q himself didn’t even consider it until that cute girl Evie told him that she had read about warlocks and told him there were tests they could do to figure out if he was one.)

* * *

It was suppose to be a potion to be put in a drink. Meant to knock the person unconscious. Q had triple checked all the ingredients and followed the exact directions for stirring, setting timers for each step in case he forgot to check the clock. He poured some in a vial and checked the colour against the chart, but it still wasn’t blue enough. 

Pour it back in, stir another thirty seconds. Check again. Repeat. 

He did that five more times before the colour finally matched. Honestly, if it took that much fine adjustment, the instructions had to be wrong. 

Q slipped it into the stash of potions to be tested. One of the bored agents was always looking to test potions. It was an adrenaline rush for them. 

Unfortunately, the potion did not knock out the agent. It turned his eyebrows, and only his eyebrows, bright purple.

(It took him another three weeks to figure out that the crushed garlic he used was from the wrong strain and he needed to import that particular ingredient specially from Illinois. Eve was just glad he tested it on someone other than himself.)

* * *

After six years of enchanting suits to resist fire, one would think it would be easy. Certainly the agents thought so. 

“Just flick your wand or whatever,” Agent Cotswald snapped. “The colour of your issued suit isn’t right. I need to wear this one.” He held out an expensive suit that he had brought from home. It had embroidered arrows on it and looked hideous. 

“It’s not that easy,” Q tried to explain. “There are many steps of preparation before I cast the spell on any clothing. And I would want to study the exact material first to adjust the spell--”

“It’s made of cotton. Just do the spell, Q. I need to catch my flight.”

Q slowly exhaled through his nose. He’d already been reprimanded from shouting at co-workers once this month and it was only the sixth. If the agent wanted him to perform the spell right here, right now, then he would. 

“Set it down on the table.”

Agent Cotswald nodded, somehow smugly, and with extreme care, lay the suit down and stepped back. 

Behind him, Q noticed Eve walking into the room. She saw what was going on and just nodded, settling in for the show.

Q pulled his wand out of his holster and cleared his throat. Then he recited the incantation, clearly annunciating each word correctly. A silver beam of light swirled with red shot out of his wand and hit the suit, spreading to cover it in an orange glow. The magic faded, but the glow didn’t. The suit was on fire. 

Agent Cotswald didn’t react until after R dumped a bucket of water on the suit and put out the fire. 

“You ruined my suit!” he shrieked.

Q calmly stowed his wand and surveyed the damage impartially. “You could still wear it. It just has a few holes, but nowhere inappropriate.”

“This suit was worth more than you earn in a single year!” He picked it up and thrust it in Q’s face. “Look at it now! I couldn’t even sell the fabric for scraps!”

“What a pity. Good thing we have a ready made fire-proof suit for you already made. It was included in your kit for this mission. Better hurry to catch your flight.”

He stormed out of the room, brushing past Eve and shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll report you and get the damages taken out of your paycheck. Just you watch me!”

Q only shook his head because this wasn’t the first time an agent had threatened that. And every time his salary stayed the same. After all, he had said there were precautions.

(Honestly, there was a reason they always fireproofed clothing in a room without Oxygen. And the reason why Eve refused to use magic even to clean up a spilt drink on her dress when they went out dancing.)

* * *

Creating a new spell was always risky. It’s why there were so few warlocks in the world. The ones who were alive were sought after and paid handsomely for their services. The basement of MI6 was probably the largest gathering of warlocks anywhere in the world unless there was a conference happening. 

This scarcity was also why Q hid his status. He was only a warlock because of his careful checking and his personal limitations on what he would and would not try. And his layers upon layers of checks and protection triggers. 

He’d used the same care to hide his status which was why he was put out, annoyed, and confused when he woke up with his hands tied in a small cottage. Kidnapped. What a waste of time. His kidnappers weren’t even around. Q closed his eyes and reached out his senses. He couldn’t feel any magic. 

Wordlessly, he freed his hands and stood up. No alarms went off or anything. Maybe this was just a really shitty kidnapper. He walked out of the room. 

“Hey! Stop right there!” a voice yelled. 

“Or what?” Q turned around but kept walking backwards. 

He held up a stick. “Or I’ll snap your wand.”

Q shrugged. It was made of titanium and just painted to look like wood. “Go ahead.” Now he did stop walking. He crossed his arms and watched them try.

They struggled, and cursed, and pointed their own wand at it. Q was almost ready to laugh. Instead he just held up his hand and summoned his wand to him as he walked away. It... sorta worked. 

His wand  _ and _ his kidnappers wand both flew to him and hovered just out of reach above his head. Whatever. He’d figure out the problem with his wording later. Right now, he just needed to get home to Eve. She’d be absolutely furious he was late for dinner.

(She was. But she did nearly piss herself laughing at the two wands hovering above his head that danced out of his reach whenever either one of them tried to grab one.)

* * *

The engineer passed over the last of the equipment to the agent. “And finally a timed explosive. Designed to detonate when you say the trigger word. I’ve written it down on a note in the case. After you say the word you have five seconds before detonation. Good luck.”

The agent said thanks and left. Off to Chile if Q was remembering correctly. Suddenly, a wave of premonition washed over Q. He called out to the engineer. “I’m curious, what is the trigger word? Now that he’s out of the room.”

The engineer smiled proudly when he said “Beech. It’s my favourite type of tree.”

Q rubbed his hands over his face, pushing his glasses up to his forehead as he did so. “Chris. Do you know what a homophone is?”

“Uh, that’s when two words are spelt differently but pronounced the same, right?”

“Yes. Can you think of any homophones for b-e-e-c-h?” He said each letter aloud. 

Chris thought it over, frowning. “No. It’s similar to birch tree, but I figured that would be different enough.”

Honestly. Did his people never go on holiday? He looked around at their hands wrapped in hand knit jumpers and gloves. Probably not. “B-e-a-c-h. Like with sand, and water. And what half of Chile is.”

“Oh.”

“Do you see the problem?”

“That, is potentially bad.”

“Quite.”

The phone rang and Q answered. It was the agent who just left. “I’m afraid your bomb has exploded in my back garden. It started beeping while I was packing and I threw it out the window.”

(Eve had to send her damage control squad over to the agent’s flat to sort things out before the authorities arrived. When she was done, she took over scolding the engineer for Q. And hour later and he was ordering them take out every Friday for the next two months.)

* * *

Q picked up his phone and walked to his office when he saw Eve was calling. She never called during office hours, preferring the exercise of walking down the stairs. 

“Hi, Honey,” he said.

“Hey, Q.” Her voice was shaky.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened. Should’ve, but didn’t. Darn charm worked. Worked a charm.” She laughed nervously at her own awful joke. 

“Hey, its okay. Tell me what happened.”

He heard her take a steadying breath. “I went out for a run. Figured I could pick up some dinner to keep warm until we leave. Suddenly a fight broke out and I was caught in the middle. I tried to duck, run, whatever, but a spell hit me. Didn’t hear what it was but it was black.”

Now Q gasped. Spells that produced black light were always meant to harm. “How badly are you hurt?”

“That’s the thing, I’m not. I kept running and got clear before I checked where it hit me, but there was no mark. Just a soft shimmering red light.”

“A protection charm?” It must’ve been a pretty powerful one to completely deflect black magic. 

“Yeah. I think it was yours.”

“Sorry, honey, but I haven’t put a protection spell on you. Always seemed finicky. Maybe your parents when you were younger?”

“No. It was you. Three years ago, our first night in our flat when we both got drunk. You were a bit drunker and you swore that you’d always protect me. I don’t think you meant it, but red light came out of your mouth when you said it and wrapped around me before fading. I never told you about it in case it didn’t work. Didn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“But it did work,” he whispered. It shouldn’t have worked. But he was glad it did. “Where are you now?”

“I’m at home.”

“Stay there. There’s nothing big today so I’ll come home. Cuddle with the cats. They’re good for stress relief.”

(Q never would learn, but he had created a new spell three years ago in his drunken state. He was a warlock after all, and not all spells needed to be so carefully worded. Sometimes the magic just read the intention in your mind and in your voice and shaped itself for you. After all, love is the most powerful magic there is.)


End file.
